


What doesn't kill you... isn't done yet

by Flips_A_Table



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 02:44:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flips_A_Table/pseuds/Flips_A_Table
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Rated because of themes.]</p>
<p>In which Dave deals with a harsh reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What doesn't kill you... isn't done yet

A hysterical laugh bubbled up in his chest, trying to travel through him and break free and be heard. He kept a lid on it, though just barely. He stood, not shaking for once, nerves all on fire, staring blankly back at his so-called brother. He quirked his lips up in a mockery of a smile and wondered when he’d lose it. He felt himself slipping little bit by little bit; it was just a matter of time. He let the words wash over him, suddenly irrelevant while simultaneously being the focal point upon which his world turned.

He wanted his Bro to hit him. Come on, raise that fist, hit me—give me a reason. For he wanted to retaliate, he wanted to let go of his tightly held control. He wanted to let that hysterical laugh go and just lose his metaphorical shit. But his Bro hadn’t hit him—at least not yet, anyway—so he couldn’t retaliate yet. He wanted to most clear-cut of reasons to justify his major flip-out. He wanted a bruise or a broken rib or maybe two. He wanted a reason he could just smile—all teeth—and point to when the cops came around and asked him why he’d done it. So the blood splatters wouldn’t seem like a product of a deranged child, but the result of abuse.

Though, really, he acknowledged that it wasn’t abuse. Not really. No matter what anybody else told him (not that he’d ever really tell anyone what he went through) he knew it didn’t actually qualify as abuse. That was just a nice fluffy thought to tuck under his pillow on nights where he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill himself or his brother or both—and if it was both then which would come first.

He snapped back to the current almost-postal causing state of affairs and caught a few words he didn’t identify with. “Stupid” and “Useless” really didn’t chime well with him, but who knew what others thought. Another laugh threatened to spill out, but he clamped down on it, stopping breathing to make sure it wouldn’t escape. Idly he wondered what the reaction would be to him laughing. Maybe he’d hit him then. That made it tempting. But if it was provoked it wouldn’t be clear-cut. It may still seem that way to others, but he’d know it wasn’t.

Breathing in and out shakily, trying to control the laughter fighting him, he relaxed all his muscles, making it look like the words didn’t affect him at all. He wondered briefly if his eyes reflected the insanity he was feeling. They must not, though, because his Bro couldn’t possibly be unobservant enough to not notice if they were. If his eyes reflected what he was feeling, and someone else with the same eyes looked at him like that he’d be running for the hills. So either they didn’t, what he thought was the more likely option, or his Bro was a fool.

Well, the word fool didn’t work in this situation, but he figured that going further into anger inducing feelings when he was this close to losing it wasn’t exactly a good idea. Instead he should think of rainbows and ponies. He wanted to laugh (this seemed to be a reoccurring problem today) at the image his brain produced. The rainbows and ponies overlaid in his mind with reality, tinged a little bit red. Red was his favorite color, after all. He saw it all the time, but even more so when he got this angry. He took a minute to admire the color, ignoring the rest of the image. The first time he’d gotten angry instead of breaking down during one of these… situations was the time he’d decided red was his favorite color. It had enveloped everything and given him some small measure of comfort. The anger was a nice buffer to hide behind; he didn’t lose dignity by getting angry, unlike when he was reduced to tears.

It made the situation worse, though, depending on how you looked at it. If he cried his Bro relented and felt bad, choosing to comfort him rather than continue on in the same vein, but he felt humiliated and hated himself that much more. Now, when he just held his ground and gave nothing back, it was almost like his Bro wanted him to break (or at least react) because he pushed a little harder every time.

He took a strange sort of pride in being able to go completely relaxed with a blank expression when these things started. He was perfecting his control over his emotions. If he didn’t react, didn’t feel, then he couldn’t break. And if he couldn’t break then Bro couldn’t break him. He felt a little less every time Bro started yelling. That made him almost hysterically happy, which, of course, meant he messed something up and started the yelling again. That particular cycle he was mostly okay with, though. The more he got yelled at the more he could distance himself from his emotions, and he had time to be logical and productive.

He tried a little harder to hang on to his happiness sometimes, but at other times he would realize that his happiness was the thing that sparked some of the incidents (many, in fact), and try to distance himself from it, too. When he got happy he messed things up. It was a cycle.

At first he’d be as emotionless and logical as he could be, then he’d react, let himself be happy, and then, inevitably, he’d fuck something up. Then the incidents happened and the cycle repeated.

It became the routine, the normal. In an odd way it was comforting. He knew what was coming. His Bro had long since stopped hitting him (though he was of mixed opinions on this). So it was an almost therapeutic exercise in how fast he could relax and vacate his mind when the yelling started.

It was kind of like a forced, completely unexpected meditation break.

Speaking of vacating his mind, he wandered back to the present to check in to see if the yelling had stopped or not. It had, but his Bro was looking at him. Oh! One of the rare times he was required to answer. “Yes.” He didn’t know what he’d agreed to—it could have been selling his soul, for all he knew, but he also didn’t really care at the moment. His Bro required an answer to move the incident along, so he gave him an answer. It didn’t matter if it was the right one or not.

In fact, he didn’t even know what he’d done to cause this incident. That was decently rare; he usually had at least some sort of vague idea as to what weird, irrational, twisted reason may or may not have sparked the anger he saw in his brother’s eyes.

…something about being stupid and useless again. His Bro hadn’t even been using any new insults. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if his Bro was just doing all of this as some kind of repetitive brain therapy to get him to be a mindless drone? Or maybe Bro just wanted to see how much he could take before he’d break. The laughter threatened to pop up again, but he swallowed it down.

The whole situation was just ridiculous. He leaned casually, completely relaxed, against the wall, eyes blank of emotion—just the way his brother claimed he wanted him, and yet that just infuriated Bro more. The perfect irony of it all was stunning.

He’d gotten so that he was pretty good at doing everything right. But he’d discovered that wasn’t enough. He could come home with the perfect grades, the perfect ‘friends’, the perfect attitude, smile at the right time, say all the right things, and still it wouldn’t be enough. Then it would be anger displaced from other people onto him. Someone else would say something wrong to his Bro, and Bro would come take it out on Dave.

What else was there to do but take it at that point? He couldn’t change everyone his Bro came into contact with. He wasn’t even going to try that one.

Oh. That was new. One threat stuck with him from the present: his Bro was threatening to kick him out. Now, that was new. Dave eyed him, daring Bro to go through with it. It would almost be a relief. He didn’t really know what he’d do, but he was confident he could figure that out at a later date.

Come to think of it that was probably a better solution than both the options of killing Bro and killing himself. He could just leave. Well, he wished it was that simple…. He fully acknowledged that it was, in fact, that simple, but he also acknowledged that he was so conditioned to his present situation that he wouldn’t leave. It wasn’t Stockholm’s Syndrome, since he didn’t particularly identify with his Bro’s anger or like him all that much (he used to, but he’d gotten over that delusion). He didn’t really know what it was holding him here.

Inertia? Perhaps. It was easier to put up with this, accepting it as his normal, and get food and housing than it would be to leave and figure things out on his own. His life would be harder out there, and he knew it. He also knew he’d be happier, but getting the momentum to leave was just not a thing that was happening.

With a mental shrug he checked in again, finding his Bro standing there, silent. He wondered if he was required to answer again. He wasn’t sure, so he kept silent, staring straight through Bro.

Bro walked away.

He wondered what that had been about.

Oh well, he plucked himself off the wall and went back to his room, sitting calmly in his chair and staring at his computer screen, wondering what he should do with the next couple hours of his life. Even now he had to push down the hysterical laughter—he couldn’t let his Bro hear him, or it’d spark another incident. And then he really might lose it. He allowed himself a smile at the thought.

It was so easy to think he had nothing to lose. He knew better, of course; he had wonderful friends (they knew nothing of his situation, though he knew that if they ever found out they’d support him blindly and probably without even a single question or doubt) and many other things, including an over-all good life.

It was too easy to forget all that.

It would be so easy to walk away from all of it.

He sighed, laying his head gently on his desk and letting his emotions die from exhaustion. His head throbbed gently, reminding him of his now ever-present headache. He never had one when he was out with his friends, but it was a constant companion when home. He wondered if it was the stress. Who knew? Who cared.

The shitty swords lying all around the house were too tempting. He fetched the one off of his bed and examined it for nicks. He found many. That was the beauty of shitty swords: you didn’t have to worry about getting nicks and scratches; it was a guarantee you’d get them.

He fiddled with it, not really sure what to do with it since he wasn’t in the middle of any kind of strife. Except perhaps with the urge to use the sword to unpleasant purposes? He didn’t count that.

He wondered exactly how close to losing it he was. He felt pretty close, but seeing as he’d never lost it before (his Bro was still alive after all) he didn’t really have a point of reference.

That was another question: if he did lose it, which way would he go? Would he kill himself, or his brother, or both, or do something else that he just hadn’t thought of yet? He really wasn’t sure. His theory was that he’d kill his brother, though… and then probably himself when the realization that he’d killed his brother sank in. It wasn’t really a pretty thought.

But he hadn’t gone over that edge, and he honestly didn’t plan on going over that edge. It was just a thought that he kept with him, because he felt he should be aware of all possibilities, especially ones that get progressively more feasible the further he slipped from what he thought of as a stable mentality.

That was the truth of it: he felt unstable. He wasn’t sure what to do about it, other than acknowledge it, and try to work away from it. He didn’t see any other option, other than, perhaps, rushing headlong towards the meltdown. Bad things would happen if he went that direction, and he knew that. Regardless of what went down it would be bad.

So, putting aside his anger and other bad feelings, he hauled himself out of his chair and went to get ready for bed. He was tired of fighting himself, so he just took a minute to put it all down and go to bed.

Some undetermined number of hours later he was awakened by a pounding on the door demanding to know why he wasn’t awake yet. Because there was totally a reason why he needed to be awake right now. Really. Dave totally believed that. Regardless, he knew he had to get up now that Bro was apparently starting the day off in a bad mood…. Being yelled at just isn’t conducive to feeling like you should do what the person yelling at you wants, however, so Dave just lay there for as long as he felt he could get away with it, and, sure enough, just when he was about to get himself out of bed Bro came back, angry that Dave hadn’t yet left the warmth of his bed.

Dave sighed, accepting the situation, and rolled out of bed, landing on his feet and scooping up some fresh clothes from the fresh clothes pile (folding was too much work) at the same time. He slipped out of his room and into the bathroom as quietly as he could, successfully avoiding detection. He left the bathroom door unlocked, though: knowing full-well that locking it would be like inviting Bro in with chocolate and flowers. He made quick work of his morning routine, stalling in the shower as long as possible, and then went out to the kitchen to face his Bro slash get some breakfast (well, he didn’t actually know what time it was, so for all he knew it was actually dinner, but he was going to call it breakfast).

"Hey, kiddo." Oh, suddenly Bro was in a good mood. Maybe the yelling earlier got it out of his system. Maybe Bro had a quota of unhappiness and anger that he had to get rid of by the end of each month, and he was just doling it out like it was allowance money. Maybe his new response as Bro started to wind down a particular instance of yelling should be something like "thanks for the allowance, Bro." Wouldn't that be just perfect? Dave stifled a laugh but failed to respond to Bro.

Bro had left out cereal. That was nice, he supposed. It was only after he had started eating that he realized he was supposed to have offered effusive thanks for the breakfast. That would come back to bite him later—probably something along the lines of being ungrateful and hating Bro for no reason. Oh well; he couldn't fix his error now. A thousand miniscule things would build up, and then the explosion would come. He didn't know how fast it would build this time, only that it would.

After munching in a minutely happy state on his cereal, he found a list with a bunch of chores on it that he had to do. He knew better than to question it, so he got to work. There weren't that many, really, and if his Bro would leave him alone to do it he'd get done fairly quickly.

First he went and gathered the laundry, getting it started. Then he wandered back to the kitchen to wash the mountain of dishes that was a constant companion in the Strider household. After he'd just barely started he heard Bro enter the room. He continued washing dishes, tense, wondering what he wanted.

"You're doing it wrong, dude. You should use that other soap, too, it's better."

Dave just barely stopped himself from responding with that saying he'd heard somewhere: "You can tell me to do something, or you can tell me how to do something. Not both." Instead he just continued washing dishes, mostly ignoring Bro's advice. He was almost done anyway.

He then moved to the pile of clean but wet dishes he'd just created and pulled out a towel to use to dry them. "Not that towel Dave. Don't you listen? I've told you a thousand times that towel isn't to be used." Bro had never said any such thing. Dave paid attention to these things (he had to); he'd remember.

But he knew better than to argue. He grabbed a different towel, putting that aside for relocation (it shouldn't be in the towel drawer if it was not to be used as a towel...). "What are you doing? You should put it back. Don't leave a mess." Alright, he'd just put that back, then.

"Jeez, do I have to do everything myself?" Was it starting yet? Oh, funny, look at his face. See the way his eyebrows crinkle down in anger. "You just don't listen. If you'd listen to me you'd know how to do these things by now! They're so simple. And you can stop giving me attitude!" He hadn't been aware he was giving anything, but okay. "You're so ungrateful!" Oh, this was breakfast coming back to bite him; it was sooner than was usual. "Why don't you love me!" Well, at least it's rate of acceleration was pretty normal. "I do everything for you! And it was me who paid for all of this!" As if you'd ever let me forget it. Or get a job to become independent in any way. "All you want to do is go out with your friends! You never spend any time at home! Much less time at home helping me!" The last time he'd left the house had been last month. "You really are useless. And you don't love me, who made you not just my top, but my only priority!" Who could love you?

Oh.

Look.

He's crying.

Isn't that pathetic ?


End file.
